On May 2, 2007, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) announced that Iranian intelligence authorities had arrested Husayn Mussavian (sometimes spelled Hossein Moussavian), the former deputy head of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team. [1] The arrest apparently occurred several days earlier on April 30. [2] On May 3, the independent FARS News Agency, which is close to Iran’s security apparatus, reported that Mussavian was arrested for having contacts and exchanges of information with foreign agents and could potentially face charges of espionage. [3] Subsequent reports claimed that the charges related to Mussavian’s disclosure of secret information concerning Iran’s nuclear program. However, Iranian authorities, who have declined to disclose the specific charges against Mussavian, said only that issues concerning the nuclear program were not the sole basis for his arrest. [4]

The majority of observers saw the arrest of such a high-ranking official as an attempt by Iranian conservatives to gain political advantage, rather than an effort to protect national secrets. Indeed, a number of observers perceived the arrest as a deliberate effort to weaken the country’s moderate faction, with which Mussavian is affiliated, to offset its gains in the 2006 local and Assembly of Experts elections. The government’s targeting of an official associated with the Iranian nuclear program also appeared to highlight the growing salience of that program in domestic politics.

Who is Husayn Mussavian?
Husayn Mussavian joined the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1982. He subsequently worked in the intelligence unit of the office of the Iranian prime minister during the 1981 to 1989 tenure of Mir Husayn Musawi. Mussavian then returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he advanced in rank and built strong relations with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. During Rafsanjani’s presidency, which ran from 1989 to 1997, Mussavian served as Iran’s ambassador to Germany. He then joined the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and served as the deputy head of the Iranian nuclear negotiating team until the election of the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in June 2005. [5] Since Ahmadinejad’s election, Mussavian has served as deputy director at the Center for Strategic Studies, a think-tank supporting Iran’s Expediency Council, which Rafsanjani currently heads.

Reasons for Arrest
The Arab media provided additional details concerning the official allegations against Mussavian, as well as insights into the behind-the-scenes political maneuvers that they claimed motivated his detention. In an article in the London-based daily Asharqalawsat, Ali Nuri Zadeh wrote on May 3 that Mussavian was charged with leaking sensitive information regarding the Iranian nuclear program to a European country, contacting an American diplomat, and being involved in a controversial deal in which Mussavian and others allegedly profited improperly from Iranian Oil Ministry contracts and received inappropriate payments from foreign oil concerns seeking to do business in Iran. [6] Ahmed Hassan, a journalist at the Saudi daily Al Watan, added that Mussavian was facing charges of leaking information regarding the tactics Iran would use to deflect growing political pressures, and possible military threats, against it as a result of its pursuit of a nuclear program that some believe has military overtones. Mussavian was also accused of providing the UN Security Council with information that enabled it to refine its various resolutions demanding that Iran cease its sensitive nuclear activities and imposing sanctions on Iran when it refused to do so. [7] However, a follow-up story by Zadeh in Asharqalawsat on May 6 stated that a source close to the head of the Iranian judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi Shahroodi, denied that Mussavian was accused of economic or financial misdeeds. The same source added that the judiciary was not involved in the arrest of the former Iranian official. [8] Iranian Attorney General Said Murtadawi similarly stressed that the Ministry of Intelligence, not his office, was conducting the investigation. [9]

Mussavian’s Criticism of Iranian Nuclear Policies
The majority of Arab publications looked beyond the official charges for the reasons underlying Mussavian’s arrest. The UAE-based moderate daily Al Khaleej wrote that since his removal from the SNSC following Ahmadinejad’s taking office, Mussavian had openly criticized the hard-line policies adopted by the new SNSC and the unyielding stance of the country’s new nuclear negotiating team. [10] Indeed, in a declaration to ISNA, the Islamic Students News Agency, Mussavian stated that his team had been able to protect Iran’s right to nuclear technology, without resorting to inflammatory statements, while, under the current team, Iran had suffered the imposition of UN Security Council sanctions and jeopardized its relations with European countries. [11]

Mussavian’s Arrest and Domestic Politics
The most detailed speculation on the arrest was provided in Zadeh’s May 3 article in Asharqalawsat when he wrote that informed Iranian sources had stated that the arrest was intended to strike a blow against Rafsanjani and his supporters, who are likely to pose a major challenge to Ahmadinejad and his conservative allies in the coming parliamentary elections, scheduled for early 2008, and the subsequent presidential election in 2009. [12] The same sources said that in 2005, shortly after Ahmadinejad’s election, the conservatives had attempted to arrest and undermine Cyrus Naseri, another moderate who then served as the head of Iran’s permanent delegation to the United Nations organizations in Vienna. [13] However, Naseri, fearing arrest, refused to return to Iran in late 2005, when he was recalled for consultations by Minister of Foreign Affairs Manushahr Mutaki and Secretary-General of the SNSC Ali Larijani (who is now Iran’s top nuclear negotiator). Reportedly, Naseri learned of plans for his detention from Husayn Mussavian. [14] In fact, the article continued, Naseri reportedly designated Mussavian to present his defense in Iran and provided Mussavian with documents that allegedly proved his innocence. [15] Linking the episode to Mussavian’s recent detention, Zadeh concluded, “As the Iranian authorities failed to arrest Naseri [in 2005], they [now] turned to his close friend, Mussavian.” [16]

Seeming to confirm that in-fighting between Iran’s conservative and moderate factions played a role in Mussavian’s arrest, an Iranian diplomat close to Mussavian said that the latter’s detention was part of a plan set in motion by President Ahmadinejad. [17] He added:

The objective of this plan is to eliminate the old guard (Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammed Khatami, Mehdi Karoubi, Hassan Rowhani, Mir Husayn Musawi) by targeting the weak links in their immediate circle of collaborators. However, the skillful reaction of Rafsanjani and his ability to mobilize the independent press and anti-Ahmadinejad social groups destabilized Ahmadinejad’s strategy and eroded his popular support. Ahmadinejad realized, after the conservatives failed to win the local and Assembly of Experts elections, that he would likely lose the next presidential election. [18]

Mussavian has received public support from a number of senior political figures in Iran. The May 3 article in Asharqalawsat said that Hashemi Rafsanjani, who now heads the Expediency Council, had strongly protested Mussavian’s arrest. [24] The newspaper added that Rafsanjani believed he was personally targeted by the arrest of his friend and former advisor, especially after a judicial source informed him of the serious nature of the charges, which seemed designed to cast the shadow of suspicion over the leadership of the moderate camp. [25] Seeming to corroborate Rafsanjani’s presumed reading of the arrest, Safa Haeri, the editor-in-chief of the Paris-based, independent Iran Press Service, quoted a highly informed analyst as saying, “The arrest of Mussavian is a direct attack on Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani.” [26]

Mussavian also received support from Alaeddin Bouroujerdi, the Chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, who was quoted on May 6 as demanding that the Ministry of Security provide an explanation for Mussavian’s arrest. [27]

Mussavian was released on May 9 after posting bail of $215,000. A trial date in the case is not known to have been set, but apparently Mussavian will be questioned further. [28]